An Extraordinary Experience

Johnson Thomas

A cinematic triumph, this allegory on war is also a treatise on man’s culpability towards fear and loathing against race and genus. Director Matt Reeves comes up with a masterful vision that disturbs while reflecting on values and ideals long forgotten in the battle for supremacy that is being waged since decades past. This film is also about infighting, betrayal  and vengeance. 

When loss and grief take hold, it’s only human to look for security in numbers and that’s what the surviving army battalions led by a Savage Colonel(Woody Harrelson) and Intelligent apes led by Caesar(Andy Serkis)do. Caesar is seeking peace, but the savage beast in man doesn’t allow him that respect. He is drawn back into conflict by human beings who refuse to allow co-existence with a species that may be their superior.

There’s disarray and lack of understanding in the angry and violent response on display. This is a beautiful, brutal,  shocking and immensely entertaining movie – one that will give you plenty of food for thought even as it goes about it’s duty of entertainment. 

Director Reeves and his team of writers fashion a contemplative journey that opens up new vistas of thought and dimension. And the experience is entirely potent and affecting!This film caps off the decades long war for supremacy between man and ape – allowing for an evolution that all but wipes out man from the alternate universe.

This is by far the best ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie I have seen and the superiority is not only about technique, it also relies on ground-breaking treatment. The depth in tone and tempo is astonishing.

The background score by Michael Giacchino and cinematography by Michael Seresin play a jugalbandi that is supremely elevating. The CGI is a work of art. In a movie where almost every frame has CGI work, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between the real and the graphically created.

And as if to prove that Nature takes care of it’s own, the entire snow capped peaks shrug off their heavy burden thundering down on the evil that has besmirched humanity for eons. It’s a spectacular evolution of creativity that deserves high praise.